It used to be a question for the biggest businesses: what do we outsource? It’s still being asked around board tables, but now the size of company is immaterial. There’s very little in business that can’t be handed off to an outside expert – even outsourcing itself.

I had a revelation. Calling our customers ‘users’ dehumanises them. It’s the linguistic equivalent of that office scene from The Apartment, reducing individuals to interchangeable units of interaction. It’s very common in IT to talk about ‘users’ and it’s understandable but I think it’s not helpful. From now on, you’re friends, customers, readers, managers, employees, staff – and above all – people.

Buddhism talks about near enemies and far enemies. Typically, the far enemy is the opposite of some good quality while the near enemy is a kind of counterfeit of the real thing. For example, the far enemy of compassion is cruelty but its near enemy is pity.